


a long, lonely while

by MusicalLuna



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Bruce Banner & Tony Stark Friendship, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, M/M, Minor Jane Foster/Thor, Not Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase Two Compliant, Past Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Pepper Potts & Tony Stark Friendship, Pepper Potts Feels, Rhodey Is a Good Bro, Sick Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Thor Friendship, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric, Touch-Starved, Touch-Starved Tony Stark, Touching
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-10-14 02:11:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10526694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicalLuna/pseuds/MusicalLuna
Summary: Tony is prone to touch-starvation.He's done well while he and Pepper dated, but when they decide to part ways, things go downhill in a hurry.





	1. Rhodey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theappleppielifestyle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theappleppielifestyle/gifts).



> so this is gonna be a quasi-series? more like i’m splitting a one-shot into bits, but WHATEVER. semantics.
> 
> ilu theappleppielifestyle, this is for u

Jim knows Tony’s got a…touch thing.

He tries to keep it quiet, but it’s not a exactly quiet thing. Not when it’s something you ache for the way Tony does.

He’s known Tony long enough that Tony doesn’t try to keep it from him anymore; at least, not on purpose. He’s been hiding it for so long though, sometimes he can’t help it.

Jim knows why, too.

A little over a year after they’d met, Tony had brought him back to New York and Jim had met the Starks.

Howard Stark had been distant, distracted—drunk off his ass. Maria Stark was melancholy in a way Jim wouldn’t recognize until he was older. She’d been affectionate with Tony, but only when his father wasn’t around. It had been pretty clear even to his eighteen-year-old self that Howard, for whatever reason, wouldn’t allow it. It didn’t make sense to him.

His own mama was the exact opposite, cupping his face and kissing his cheeks even in front of his superiors in the Air Force, embarrassing the everliving _daylights_ out of him, so it had been a shock meeting Tony’s family. He’d always thought being wealthy would fix everything, but after seeing the Starks and the way they’d sat stiffly around the enormous dining room table in that big mansion hardly talking, he’d turned around on that idea in a hurry.

What it had done was make sense of the way Tony tended to crawl all over him, worming up against his side and tucking himself up under Jim’s arm when he got drunk and crashed into Jim’s dorm room.

After that weekend though, they’d gone back to school and Jim had been more determined than ever to be there for the brilliant, wacky kid who was the first peer he’d ever had. He deserved to have someone love on him the way Jim’s mom loved on him.

He did the best he could, but Jim takes after his dad who’s more like Tony’s mom. Not great at giving the kind of touches he thinks Tony really needs. But he’s great at letting Tony touch. Any time he moves in, Jim’s arms open automatically. He gets used to the weight of Tony’s head on his shoulder and the warmth of Tony’s body up his ribs. Someday he hopes there’ll be somebody who can do what he can’t, who will reach for Tony first.

In the meantime, he smiles when the door slides open as he heads in from the landing pad on the roof of Stark Tower and finds Tony racing toward him.

“Sugar Bear!” Tony yells and Jim laughs as Tony plows straight into him, arms coming up and wrapping tight around Jim’s back.

“Hey, Tones,” he says, gripping him back just as tight. “It’s good to see you, man.”

“Of course it is,” Tony says loftily. “It’s always good to see me. Eyes don’t get it any easier than me.”

Jim snorts. “We both know I’m the pretty one.”

“Ha!” Tony says and leans back, hands slipping to curl around Jim’s shoulders. He copies the movement and they stand there for a minute like a couple of idiots just grinning at each other.

“So how’s it going,” Jim asks finally. “What’s it like having all the supers in your back pocket?”

“There is only one super, thank you very much,” Tony says. “Thor doesn’t count, he’s normal for his species.”

“Is that what you tell yourself to make yourself feel better?”

“I am easily the coolest person on this team, I don’t have to tell myself anything to make me feel better. Don’t shove your issues off on me. I asked you if you wanted to be an Avenger.”

“I’m too busy being awesome,” Jim replies. Tony still hasn’t shaken him off, or made any effort to feign disinterest in having Jim all over him. Normally it’d be an uphill battle to give Tony what he so desperately wants. He frowns and squeezes Tony’s shoulders. “Hey, is everything okay?”

He gets more nervous when Tony doesn’t look up, his greasy hair flopping over his forehead and hiding his eyes.

“Tony?”

“Ah…” He hears Tony swallow, and Jim rubs his shoulder almost without thinking, encouraging him to say whatever it is. Tony finally looks up, just for a second, and Jim’s heart drops when he sees the wet sheen of his eyes. His voice is rough when he says, “Pepper.”

Jim’s hands squeeze a little tighter. “Shit. _Shit_. Tony— Jesus, Tony, I’m sorry. Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

Before Tony can answer, he hauls him in for a hug, gets his arms around Tony’s shoulders and holds him tight, hand cupping the back of Tony’s head. Tony clutches at his sides, breaths a little uneven. “I dunno,” he says. “I dunno, Rhodey—”

“It’s okay,” Jim assures him. “It’s okay, you don’t have to. When?”

Tony sucks in a shaking breath. “Last Thursday,” he says and his voice breaks.

“Jesus, you should have told me, man, I would have come.”

The laugh that bursts from Tony’s mouth is a little hysterical. “Too early as usual.”

Jim ignores the joke. “She…” He hesitates, not wanting to phrase this wrong and make things worse.

“We agreed to end it,” Tony mumbles into his shoulder. “She doesn’t wanna do the saving the world thing and I moved five superheroes into the Tower. It wasn’t fair to her. I wanted to, for her, but I can't— I couldn't—”

Tony’s voice chokes off into silence, his hot, ragged breaths seeping through Jim’s shirt. Jesus, they called it quits. No wonder Tony’s…

Getting closer to Tony is impossible, but it doesn’t stop Jim from trying. “I’m sorry,” he breathes into the side of Tony’s head. “God, Tony, I’m so sorry. I really thought—”

Tony laughs that slightly hysterical laugh again and blurts, “Yeah, me too,” and then he’s coming apart under Jim’s hands, shaking with sobs.

Jim tries to make contact wherever he can. If they’ve been on the outs since Thursday it’s probably been over a week since anybody with blood and a beating heart touched Tony. No wonder he hadn’t pulled away. Broken up with Pepper, Jesus.

“I’m sorry, Tones,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry.”


	2. Pepper

The months following the break up with Tony are some of the hardest of Pepper’s life.

She has to hire a make up artist to follow her around full time because every time she’s alone, she breaks down in tears. It’s awful.

He can’t give up that part of himself, and she wouldn’t ask him to. She can’t be strong the way he needs, but she _can_ do this job, she can take care of Tony’s company— _their_ company. It’s something to focus on that isn’t painful.

They agree when they break up that they’ll see each other as little as possible for at least six months. Pepper knows that it’s necessary to allow them time to properly separate themselves from one another, but it’s terrible anyway. Tony is everything to her. He’s been the one constant in her life since—God, since she was twenty-eight.

She loves him very much and it’s agony not seeing him.

It’s almost a month and a half before work needs them to meet in person. Pepper is a nervous wreck beforehand. Being free of all the stress of Tony’s hobby and the constant feeling that she’s letting him down is a relief, but she misses him desperately and she wants things to be the way they were. She knows they can’t be and that the time will come for them to build something new; the waiting is hard nevertheless.

The door opens and Pepper stands hastily, her fingers tightening around the pen in her hand. Tony peeks around the door.

Her breath catches at the sight of him.

“You ready for me, Miss Potts?”

“Yes, yes,” she says hastily. “Come in, Tony.”

Pepper’s eyes rake over him, cataloging what she sees. He looks as awful as she feels, his eyes ringed with dark circles and lined in red. He smiles at her, but it’s a little flimsy and his eyes slip away quickly. He’s neatly dressed though, shoulders not too tense.

“It’s good to see you, Tony,” she says, voice thick in her throat.

“You too, Potts.” Then, so quiet she almost doesn’t hear, “I miss you.”

Just like that, her eyes are pricking with tears. “I miss you, too,” she whispers.

He laughs and the sound is wet. “This sucks, Pep. I mean, it _really_ sucks.”

“I don’t disagree,” she says.

He looks up at her and a tear slips over his lashline. Something inside her cracks and Pepper steps around the desk, reaches up and brushes it away with her thumb, cupping his face in her hands.

Tony’s face crumples, lip quivering, and he leans into the touch, his hands curling gingerly around her wrists. He takes one short, shuddering breath and that’s when Pepper remembers his touch thirst. “Oh, Tony,” she breathes. He probably feels so isolated, starving for it all the time.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes.

“Me, too. Oh, Tony, I’m so sorry.”

They stand there for a long time. Pepper tells herself it’s for Tony, because he needs it, but that’s only partly true.

He’s the first one to pull away.

“Sorry,” he says. “This is probably against the rules.”

“I don’t care,” she replies and smiles when that garners one out of him.

“Was I that much of a stabilizing influence? You’re going off the rails, Potts.”

She laughs and squeezes his arms. “Just a few more months—”

“Five and a half. A hundred and sixty-three days, to be exact.”

Pepper makes a face. “Oh, god, that long?”

Tony’s the one who laughs this time, but he seems lighter, it’s more genuine. “Then we can be friends,” he says. “We can still be together. Just not. Together.”

She still aches, but he’s right. In the end, the only thing they’re losing is the sex. And it was good, but she can live without it. She can’t live without Tony. “A hundred and sixty-three days. Okay. We can do this.”

“We can do anything,” Tony says, and Pepper keeps the small voice that says, _Except make this work_ , to herself.

She talks with Rhodey regularly, and even though she probably shouldn’t, she occasionally asks after Tony. She wants to know someone is looking out for him, taking care of him. Someone needs to. He only knows one number from his social for god’s sake.

But he’s talking with Rhodey almost daily she finds out and that’s reassuring, if not wholly satisfying. She watches, the few times she does see him, and no one seems to touch him. Of course, there’s the occasional handshake and shoulder pat and Bruce allows him to thoroughly invade his personal bubble, but there are no hugs, no knees touching, no one fixing his collar or smoothing his hair or touching his cheek. She worries about it.

Tony had once confessed to her that he felt it like hunger, a relentless yearning, an itch under his skin. When she’d learned that and begun touching him more regularly, holding his hand and cuddling and kissing whenever she felt like it, he’d been better overall. More rested, more centered, more focused. So maybe it’s not essential, but he needs it.

It’s not her job to take care of him anymore though, so she takes care of herself.


	3. Natasha

It had taken Natalie Rushman less than a day to recognize and begin to use to her advantage Tony Stark’s touch hunger.

Briefly, she’d believed she would have to sleep with him, but Tony seemed to like the casual touches and attention just fine. He was good at closing the deal with other women, but he never put in the effort with her.

Natasha realized at some point that it was because she intimidated him, which intrigued her. There was very little that intimidated Tony Stark.

She was happy for him when she heard that he and Pepper were trying out a relationship. He’d get all the touching he liked. She wasn’t entirely sure what Pepper was thinking—after all, Tony had brought her to the bare, ragged end of her rope, but Natasha hoped she could find what she needed, too.

And they had, for a year or so.

Pepper had confided in her, so Natasha had been privy to how Pepper spent the last six months of the relationship desperately trying to deny what she’d known from the beginning—that she didn’t want the things Tony did. Not for lack of effort. Natasha can’t even count the times she’d said, “Tony’s a good man, and he’s doing good things, and I love that about him,” the way someone would repeat a mantra. And she did love him, but Tony’s life circled in ever closer around superheroing.

It had hurt to watch them both try increasingly desperately to hold it together.

The burden their relationship had been was immediately obvious in the wake of the break up. Pepper had grieved of course, but it was with a palpable sense of relief now that she wasn’t trying to feel something so at war with her center self.

Tony has been a different story.

Even understanding that it had been sheer incompatibility, Natasha knows he still blames himself. She knows he sometimes regrets not offering to give Avenging up, but it would have been the same problem in reverse. Still, he blames himself. As though giving up a part of his soul would help.

It’s hard to tell what parts of his suffering are emotional and how much of it is from the sudden deficit of touch.

He’s run down lately, nearly as badly as he had been during the palladium debacle.

Natasha tries to help fill the void, but there’s only so much she can do that seems natural and she knows from experience confrontation will only make him withdraw.

Tonight she has a good excuse. He won’t turn her away.

“Tony,” she calls from the doorway of his workshop and her voice is hoarse, deeper than usual.

“Yeah, Tasha,” he calls back absently from the far right corner. He’s hunched in front of a workable, one hand buried in his hair. He sounds congested.

Natasha hesitates—this is difficult for her, but she probably needs it as much as Tony does. “Tony,” she says again and her voice sounds smaller to her own ears, younger. “Would you— I’m…”

Tony turns around, blinking, his brow furrowed. “Natasha?”

She smiles at him and feels the way it wavers on her face. “I’m having a rough night,” she manages, voice gone thick and wet.

Tony’s expression folds in concern and he puts aside the tool in his hand without even looking at the bench. “What do you need?” he asks, heading for her.

She smiles again, wrapping her arms around her waist and shrugs her shoulders. “Company?”

He nods, reaching out a hand to skim up her arm as soon as she’s within reach, his eyes sharp as they take in her face. “Bad one, huh?”

Natasha nods again and moves in closer, pressing her face into the curve of his shoulder.

Tony’s still for a bare second, then his arms wrap around her and he dips his head down to kiss the top of her head.

It’s a kind of relief Natasha is only just starting to get used to.

She lets herself sink into it, leaning into Tony’s chest and he holds her tight in a way that’s strangely soothing. She likes the way Tony smells of grease and metal, a hint of freshly mown grass. This close she can hear him breathing and he’s definitely congested. She tilts her head back a little and looks up at him. “Are you not feeling well?”

“A little under the weather is all,” he says and gives her a wan smile. “Why don’t we move this somewhere more comfortable?”

She nods in agreement. They move to the couch, where Tony sits and she curls up against his chest, resting her head on his shoulder so she can look at the arc reactor.

Natasha starts to reach for it, then thinks better of the movement. “May I?”

Tony hesitates, then nods, shrugs. “Sure, go ahead.”

Natasha knows his history, knows _their_ history, so she’s surprised by the agreement, and the implicit trust in it, however casually it’s been doled out. “Thank you,” she murmurs. It touches her deeply, having his trust, same as it had when Steve had granted her his.

“Weird thing to thank me for,” he says. He’s not tense when she gently lays her hand over the reactor, but he’s not relaxed either. She tilts her hand this way and that, watching the way the light filters through her fingers. It’s warm in the center, cool around the edges. It’s amazing that something so innocuous is the key to his entire life. She’s tempted to run her finger around the outside seam, but restrains herself.

Instead she sets her fingertips against the glass lightly and says, “Can you feel it?”

“I can feel the pressure, the vibrations. Nothing specific though.”

“Does it hurt?”

Tony breathes out a sharp puff of air through his nose. “Well, having a big hunk of metal wedged into your sternum isn’t pleasurable, exactly.”

Natasha’s stomach twists. “All the time then.”

“Yeah,” Tony agrees.

Natasha doesn’t want to touch it anymore.

She settles her hand on his belly instead and squeezes him. He’s started to relax, softening against her and she closes her eyes and settles in.

She feels steadier already and hopes Tony does, too.


	4. Bruce

Bruce knows a thing or two about being touch-starved.  
  
The first year after the Other Guy had happened, he’d been shaky and ill near constantly. He was depressed, and caught everything and anything.  
  
He’d known before his isolation that a lack of human contact could be detrimental, but it hadn’t prepared him. It was like trying to comprehend pain like a kidney stone or birth before experiencing it. Nothing could have conveyed its true awfulness.  
  
Human contact had been a luxury he couldn’t afford and he had suffered for it.  
  
When he’d honed his control and started trying to help and make up for the endless destruction he’d left behind him, he’d fluctuated between being repulsed by the slightest touch and over-lingering.  
  
The casual touches had eventually become routine and he stopped having the adverse reactions. Longing for more had taken longer to deal with. Starting his work doing medicine had helped there. A steady stream of taking pulses and feeling foreheads had been a big relief.  
  
The point is, when Tony breaks up with Pepper, Bruce recognizes the symptoms after just a few days. It’s also pretty apparent Tony’s more deeply affected by it than Bruce has ever been. He needs more than the casual touches of a friendship or acquaintance, which becomes particularly apparent after the fifth time Tony dodges the hand Bruce tries to put on his shoulder—even though he immediately looks like he regrets it.  
  
It smacks of a problem with history older than Bruce’s.  
  
These days Bruce is good at accepting and enjoying the touches bestowed on him, but instigating has never been his forte and he can’t quite make himself step out of that comfort zone, even for Tony.  
  
The other Avengers are always around, coming and going from the communal kitchen or the communal gym—they’re all lonely, every one of them seeking out the presence of other people, if not direct contact—and he expects that they’ll see the need and fill it better than he can.  
  
But one month turns into two, two months turns into three, and Tony looks more and more wretched with every passing day.  
  
“Bless you,” Bruce murmurs when Tony sneezes one afternoon and swears under his breath, one hand moving to press against the arc reactor. He’s been nursing a cold for over two weeks and it’s starting to worry Bruce. The now-audible wheeze in his breathing is especially concerning.  
  
“Thanks,” Tony mutters and puts his head in his hands.  
  
Bruce sets aside his notes. “Have you had anyone look into that?”  
  
Looking up at him with watery, red-rimmed eyes, Tony says wearily, “What, my sniffles?”  
  
Bruce nods. He’s trying to tread carefully, but that’s not exactly his specialty.  
  
“Why bother? Their advice is always the same—rest, drink fluids, pop a few Advil.” Tony shrugs.  
  
“Do you— Would you mind if I had a look?” Bruce is surprised at himself for that and apparently so is Tony—he looks up, eyebrows raised.  
  
“Knock yourself out,” Tony says with a smirk that has a shadow of his usual attitude behind it.  
  
Bruce clears his throat, then gets to his feet and moves over to where Tony’s seated because he’s committed.  _Think of him as any other patient,_  he tells himself and that helps settle him. He reaches for Tony’s wrist first, curling his fingers around it to check his pulse. “How long have you been feeling under the weather?”  
  
“Coupla weeks.”  
  
“Symptoms?”  
  
Tony’s skin is slightly clammy and his pulse is fast, so there’s that and—  
  
“Headache, general aches, coughing, sneezing, chills on and off. Fatigue. You know. Sickness.”  
  
Bruce lets go of Tony’s wrist, frowning slightly. He has a stethoscope around here somewhere and he’d like to hear Tony’s lungs. “Two weeks is a long time for a cold.”  
  
“You’re telling me,” Tony mutters.  
  
After looking a few places, Bruce manages to find the stethoscope. He hooks it in his ears and gestures at Tony. “Can you lift your shirt?”  
  
“Things don’t sound the same in there with my little attachment, you know that, right?” Tony says, but he lifts it up all the same. Bruce is careful to school his expression and not to stare, even though the sight of that hunk of metal embedded in Tony’s skin makes him feel a little nauseated.  
  
“I’ll never know if I don’t try,” Bruce tells him and flashes him a little smile.  
  
“I can see your biology boner, and, boy, it’s a doozy.”  
  
“Shh,” Bruce murmurs, distracted by the noise of Tony’s chest. The arc reactor makes a steady thrumming noise that nearly drowns out the sound of Tony’s heartbeat and breathing, but after a minute or two of listening, Bruce is pretty sure he can make them out well enough. “Take a deep breath,” he asks.  
  
Tony humors him and breathes in as deeply as he’s able—it makes him cough with a crackling sound that Bruce knows immediately is bronchitis.  
  
The coughing doesn’t stop for nearly two minutes, and by the time it’s over, Tony is clutching Bruce’s arm, gasping frantically for breath. Bruce may not be a touchy guy, but he puts a hand on Tony’s back and rubs it, trying to provide what little comfort he can. “There you go,” he says as Tony finally wheezes his way back to a normal breathing pattern. He cups his hand around the back of Tony’s neck and Tony’s head sinks down to rest on Bruce’s chest like the mere weight of it is too much. “You need to be medicated,” Bruce says and Tony breathes, “Sure.”  
  
He doesn’t move, and Bruce doesn’t make him.  
  
It’s not a solution for Tony’s depressed immune system, but it’s something. Bruce doesn’t know how, but the touch starvation needs to be addressed.  
  
Tony can't—and shouldn’t have—to go on like this.


	5. Thor

Thor returns to Midgard when the Bridge is reestablished. He wants to check on the group that helped him bring his brother home. He goes to Stark's tower and has hardly been there long enough to say hello when Jane arrives in a whirlwind. He is so pleased to see her, he doesn't question how such a thing came to pass at first, but when the initial joy of their reunion tempers, Thor realizes that there is a reason she arrived so soon after he.

“How did you know I would be here?” he asks Jane.

The look he gets in return is surprised. “I didn't. Tony called me. He sent his plane.”

Thor blinks at her. “He sent for you when I arrived?”

Jane smiles and squeezes Thor's fingers. “Yeah. I guess he knew I'd want to see you.”

Thor ducks his head to allow himself to peek at her shy smile. It widens and her eyes meet his.

“You wanted to see me?”

Heat flares in Jane's gaze. “You know I did.”

They don't separate until JARVIS informs them dinner is arriving. When they emerge into the kitchen, Tony is already there, sniffling as he scoops brightly-colored food out of a white container. He's wearing slouchy pants in a soft-looking fabric covered in crossing stripes of black, gray, and red and a black “t-shirt”. He smiles when he looks up and sees them, but it is immensely weary. Concern overtakes Thor.

“Hey there, lovebirds. Thanks for coming up for air.”

Thor moves around to grasp the back of Tony's neck. “Thank you for bringing us together again!” He frowns, seeing the pallor of Tony's skin up close—his skin is dull, drawn. “Are you feeling unwell?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Cold or something. No big.” He shakes his plate a little. “This'll clear my sinuses right up.”

“I wish you a speedy recovery.” Thor gently squeezes the back of Tony's neck, offering what little reassurance he can. He wonders if his mother might be able to help, or maybe he's only fussing.

“Thanks.” Tony closes his eyes briefly. “Your hand's warm,” he murmurs.

“Oh, he's like a _furnace_ ,” Jane says, spooning some of the fragrant food onto a plate. Thor smiles at her, grateful again that Tony was kind enough to arrange her arrival.

Thor releases Tony, but watches him as the others join them, and throughout dinner. His acerbic wit is as present as ever. However, when the others' attention strays, Thor notices Tony's eyes lingering on the easy physical contact between Clint and Natasha, as well as the way his and Jane's hands sit entwined on the table.

Curious, he asks, “Where is your Lady Pepper?”

A shadow passes over Tony's face. “Ah, she's not mine anymore, bud.” Conversation around the table falls silent as the others exchange looks and Thor realizes he's tread somewhere still raw.

“I'm sorry. I did not mean to pry at a painful wound.”

Tony waves a hand, words stymied as he breaks into a bout of coughing. “Relax about it,” he rasps when it subsides. “You didn't know.”

After that, Thor keeps a close eye on Tony. It's easy to see he isn't well, but it isn't clear to Thor how bad it is or if there's anything to be done. What _is_ clear is how little Thor knows about Midgardian physiology. Something else that quickly becomes clear is that Midgardians are reserved when it comes to physical touch. Well—not all of them.

Steve easily—almost eagerly—responds to Thor's casual touches with casual touches of his own. Sometimes Thor will see him start to reach out to one of the others only to pull back. Natasha and Clint tolerate Thor's gestures, but make none of their own, and Bruce keeps a wide enough distance between them that he never learns how he might react. Tony seems to waver between Steve's eager response and Bruce's distance-keeping. Thor observes Natasha watching Tony carefully and Bruce occasionally nudging Tony's elbow with his own, but there is little more physical contact between Tony and the other Avengers. It seems strange. Tony is a physical person and to see him untethered seems...wrong. It is especially strange to see the careful space kept between he and Steve when they both so clearly desire the touch of a friendly hand.

Perhaps that is why he is ill. But if that were true, wouldn't his comrades know that and do something to alleviate it? Unless touch is taboo on Midgard, but that doesn't quite make sense. They don't avoid all contact.

He doesn't know the answers to his questions, but he vows to do what he can.

One evening they gather to sit and watch movies and Thor takes advantage of the opportunity, sitting close to Tony and slinging an arm around his shoulders. Tony gives him a sidelong look. “Hey, there, Big Guy. Can I help you?”

“I would like to sit with you, if I may,” Thor replies easily.

“What about your girlfriend?”

“Jane knows where my affections lie. We are friends are we not? And this is comfortable.”

“Well. Yeah,” Tony agrees and protests no more. Thor settles in to be entertained, pleased. They receive a few curious looks from the others, but Natasha and Clint twine themselves together even more closely and nothing is said.

As the night goes on, Thor catches Steve sneaking glances at them periodically, something like envy in his eyes. It is interesting that he doesn't join them. Something is stopping him. Tony had seemed to think Jane would mind their proximity, so perhaps Midgardians are only physically affectionate with their romantic partners. Clint and Natasha's behavior suggests otherwise, but maybe such a thing is only frowned upon between men? It seems foolish to deprive themselves, no matter the reasoning, when they are surrounded by only friends.

Very strange.

The movie has only just begun when Tony falls asleep, face turned into Thor's chest and his arm curled around Thor's waist. He is much more open with his desire for physical contact while asleep. His guard is down and his vulnerabilities are exposed and Thor is ever more convinced that Tony is being deprived of something he needs. He cradles Tony closer, reassuring his sleeping mind that he can have all he desires. Thor will ensure no harm comes to him for it.


End file.
